Nowadays, it seems that any business worth its salt is dishing out quality content on a regular basis. Well, the fact of the matter is that they don’t really have a choice, seeing as how creating and publishing quality content across the web is the most powerful way to build brand visibility and awareness, rank higher in the relevant SERPs, and build brand trust and authority in a competitive market. Naturally, this means that you too should create and execute your own content strategy if you are to snag your piece of the market, drive traffic to your site, and elevate your brand above the competition.
This is often easier said than done, though, as creating an all-encompassing content strategy can seem like a cost and labor-intensive project. While it might look like that at first glance, it’s important to remember that you too can create some amazing, high-converting content if you choose the right tactics and invest in the right approach.
Tips To Build A Content Strategy
1. Start by defining your goals
Every strategy, every process, every thought at a brainstorming session – everything should have a goal. Without a goal in mind, you can hope to build a foundation for your strategy, nor can you hope to create a viable way to measure your content’s performance and make changes in a timely manner. What’s more, defining your goals will help you settle on the content types that you’re going to create primarily, and it will help you choose the best dissemination channels for your brand and the industry you occupy. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
You have a number of goals you can choose from, and the best part is that it doesn’t have to be a single goal. The more goals you have, though, the more time you’ll have to spend adjusting parameters and monitoring performance, so keep that in mind before proceeding.
Whether your goal is to build brand awareness, authority, rank high in the SERPs, or others, it’s important that all of your goals are SMART. Making your goals specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound will drive accountability and productivity, and help you stay on course in the months to come.
2. Nail your SEO strategy
Search engine optimization is one of the primary reasons why you’re making digital content in the first place, so SEO should be your top priority. With proper implementation, SEO will allow you to rank higher in organic searches and build your brand’s visibility and authority on the global as well as the local scene. This is especially important if you’re operating in highly competitive markets, like Hong Kong.
To localize their content as much as possible business leaders will work closely with an experienced SEO company from Hong Kong that understands the ins and outs of the market, and knows how to optimize content for maximum visibility in the local marketplace. No matter where you operate in the world, it’s important to combine general and local SEO tactics to make your content, and thus your business, visible to the right audience.
Secret Tips To Create A Successful Content Strategy
3. Research the audience and the market
Nobody really wants to “waste” time researching the market and the trends that prevail within, then researching the audience for who knows how long, and then researching the competition – but quite simply, you have to do all of that. There’s no way around it, you can’t start making any content before you have collected and organized key industry insights into actionable reports that will tell you exactly how to shape your content strategy to appeal to your ideal customer.
Fail to do this, and you’ll just be shooting in the dark. With that in mind, be sure to spend time researching market trends and the course the market is taking. Then, start researching your audience, their likes, and dislikes, and the values and causes they care about – these will be crucial for creating relevant content. And finally, don’t start making content before you’ve researched your competition, because this will help you uncover customer pain points and allow you to capitalize on content that your competitors are not creating.
4. Develop ideas for numerous content types
It used to be that written content dominated inbound digital marketing, but nowadays, other content forms are quickly rising to prominence due to the popularization of specialized online platforms and social media networks. Sure, in-depth articles and blog posts should still be the key focus of your strategy, but it’s also important that you diversify your content offering to make it shareable across numerous online channels.
For example, if you want to dominate on Instagram, then you need to make amazing images and videos, complemented by truly inspiring captions and some relevant hashtags. Over on Facebook, you can share your articles and inspire people to follow the link to your site with teaser captions. You can also capitalize on beautiful infographics, and launch a podcast channel on popular streaming services to position yourself as the go-to source of quality information in the field.
5. Build a strong backlink portfolio
It’s not just about publishing content on your site or sharing it across the social media realm – it’s also about disseminating your content on other authority websites within and outside of your niche. Generating quality backlinks on reputable websites will drive “link juice” to your site and thus drive your SEO strategy forward and position your content higher in the SERPs.
Be careful, though, and only stick to white-hat SEO tactics, otherwise, you might get penalized by Google and sully your reputation. Be sure to find sites to get in touch with, come up with interesting and relevant topics, and then pitch your guest post and ask the editor for a mention and a do-follow link that leads back to your site. Do this on a continuous basis, and you will build an amazing backlink portfolio.
Final Words On Content Strategy
Creating a content strategy might seem like a cumbersome task, but in reality, it can be a straightforward process if you take the time to research and choose your primary tactics. With this guide at your side, go ahead build yourself a content strategy that will propel your business up the SERPs.
AUTHOR BIO
Jacob Wilson is a business consultant, and an organizational psychologist, based in Brisbane. Passionate about marketing, social networks, and business in general. In his spare time, he writes a lot about new business strategies and digital marketing for Bizzmark blog.
